The first patient with the H1N1 swine flu has been reported in Germany, and officials believe they have identified a second person with the potentially deadly illness. The development comes as countries around the world increase security measures out of fear a global pandemic is emerging.

German officials reported the first case of swine flu in the country on Wednesday. According to the Health Ministry in the southern state of Bavaria, a suspected case near the city of Regensburg has been confirmed by the country's disease control authority, the Robert Koch Institute.

Bavarian Health Minister Markus Söder said there were two further suspected cases in the state. And in North Rhine-Westphalia, officials have reported three suspected cases.

Meanwhile, the Financial Times Deutschland newspaper is reporting that virologists in Hamburg believe they have identified a young women infected with the potentially deadly H1N1 virus, which has sparked fears of a global pandemic this week following a wave of deaths in Mexico. Final test results were expected on Monday. The woman was taken on Tuesday morning to a hospital in Hamburg with a high fever and typical symptoms of the flu. The head of the virology department at Hamburg's Bernhard Nocht Institute for Tropical Medicine, Stephan Günther, said there was "profound" belief the woman had been infected.

The hospital reported that the woman had travelled to Mexico and had just returned to Hamburg. She has been placed in isolation at the hospital, where she is being tested and treated with medication. Officials said that, under the circumstances, the patient was doing well.

In Munich on Wednesday, airport officials were awaiting the arrival of a flight from Cancun, Mexico, on an Airbus 330 that can carry 275 passengers. If any of the passengers on board show symptoms of the deadly flu, officials said, the aircraft would be parked in an isolated location. Passengers showing symptoms would be taken to isolated medical stations for testing.

In Austria, officials also believe they have identified a 28-year-old woman infected with H1N1, Franz Heinz, the head of the Vienna University Institute for Virology, told public television station ORF.

Suspected cases have also been reported in many other countries, including France, Belgium, Switzerland and Chile. On Tuesday evening, two cases were also confirmed in Great Britain, as well as two additional cases in Spain. So far, though, none of the patients are in a serious condition.

With the number of cases spreading globally, the World Health Organization has raised its pandemic alert for the deadly virus from phase three to four.

We have three confirmed cases.
One woman suffered a lighter case of flu nad has recoverd fully. Her husband was not infected. So it doesn't seem to spread all to easily.
The second woman had another illnes which the officials didn't want to name. She had a severe case and was treated with Tamiflu. She has also recovered.
The third case wasn't described indetail.
This information is from a press conference on N24 Television 30 minutes ago.

Damned near everyone in Mexico must have this, to infect so many foreign touristas.

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"The trouble with most folks isn't so much their
ignorance, as knowing so many things that ain't so."
--Josh Billings
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Germany has confirmed its first case of human-to-human transmission of the H1N1 flu, contracted by someone who has not travelled to Mexico, the country where the virus was first recorded.

A nurse from Bavaria was reported on Friday to have been infected with the virus after contracting it from a patient who had been to Mexico.

Al Jazeera's Jonah Hull, in Geneva, said that the human-to-human transmission of the disease was crucial in whether the virus would spread widely.

"That raises the possibility at least that human-to-human transmission is taking place on a sustained basis away from the epicentre," he said.

"And that leads to the question of whether number six on the pandemic scale is called by the WHO [the World Health Organisation]. Whether it is, in fact, then defined as a real pandemic."

Level six is defined as human-to-human sustained transmission in at least two regions or continents of the world and is the highest of the WHO's rankings.

The alert level now stands at five.

Hull reported: "We already have Mexico and the US. Now we have Europe and the possibility that this is not only connected to those who have been in Mexico. That is key to the progression of this whole thing towards pandemic status."

UK tests

The nurse has since recovered, the health ministry said.

It is the second case of human-to-human transmission within a country other than Mexico

BERLIN, June 23 (Reuters) - Germany's federal agency for infectious diseases said on Tuesday there were signs the H1N1 swine flu virus had started to mutate and warned it could spread in the coming months in a more aggressive form.

Experts were concerned about how the flu was developing in Australia and South America, said Joerg Hacker, head of the Robert Koch Institute for infectious diseases.

"It's possible the virus has mutated. In autumn the mutated form could spread to the northern hemisphere and back to Germany," Hacker told a news conference in Berlin.

The World Health Organisation raised swine flu to pandemic status earlier this month. According to its latest figures, more than 230 people have been killed by the flu worldwide from 52,000 confirmed cases, mostly in the United States and Mexico.

Symptoms of swine flu are typically fairly mild, but doctors have said the virus could evolve into something more aggressive.

According to WHO figures, Germany has the third highest rate of swine flu infection in Europe with 275 confirmed cases.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel told the conference that Germany was as prepared as it could be for any surge in cases.

"We are in contact about it internationally," she said. "Now all we have to do is coordinate internationally who should be vaccinated and how we should do it, in case things get worse."

The WHO has advised governments to prepare for a long-term battle against the new pandemic it officially calls A(H1N1).

WHO Director-General Dr. Margaret Chan said recently the virus is currently "pretty stable," but warned it could still change into a more deadly form, perhaps mixing with the H5N1 bird flu virus circulating widely in poultry.

It's not really important but the mutations are a statement from a different official. Merkel probably only touched on the broader lines.

I wondered if i had to crosspost this warning in a thread in Flu Discussion but the 'signs' are really normal extrapolations from the present day situation:

Quote:

Experts were concerned about how the flu was developing in Australia and South America, said Joerg Hacker, head of the Robert Koch Institute for infectious diseases.

"It's possible the virus has mutated. In autumn the mutated form could spread to the northern hemisphere and back to Germany,

There's a pretty complete thread on Australia but there's a lot of information lacking on the South American countries.

There's a lot less news in English press about them while the numbers started shooting up quite dramatically soon. It might very well turn as bad as in North America and worse due too living standards. The most different things in the news are the 2nd Australian death (very quick) and the clustering of deaths in Chile.

Flu changes all the time anyway. It's possible it could come in the Autumn but with the amount of air plane travel it might be here sooner.

We'll probably sees 'signs of mutation' in the news before it's official.

Essen - Germany has had its first confirmed swine flu fatality, medical tests released Thursday confirmed. The 36-year-old woman died of multiple organ and lung failure on September 25. Extensive tests showed that the H1N1 virus - commonly known as swine flu - was the cause of death, the University Clinic in Essen said.

The woman, a heavily obese smoker, was considered a high risk patient. The H1N1 virus had made her susceptible to a host of other bacteria, doctors said.

She died ten days after being transferred to the hospital, following complications related to the viral infection.

German medical authorities are reporting the country's first swine flu death in a person with no other known health problems.

Bonn's university hospital announced the death Friday of a 48-year-old woman. Michael Lentze, medical director at the Bonn hospital, said the woman had been healthy until being infected suddenly with swine flu.

Elsewhere in Germany, authorities reported that a 5-year-old child with a severe pulmonary infection also died from swine flu. The two deaths bring the number of Germans who have died from swine flu to five.

In the three initial cases, the people who died from swine flu were also battling other illnesses.

Germany signed a secret contract to prepare for a pandemic of deadly flu - in 2007!

BILD has revealed the agreement with pharmaceutical firm GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) which was apparently signed from an underlying fear of the bird flu virus. It came into affect when the swine flu pandemic began.

And you can read portions of the 'Agreement between the German government and its states and GSK' regarding the preparation of a vaccine for the killer virus in Germany:

QUANTITY

“GSK offers all states... the possibility... to buy 25 per cent of its Dresden-produced pandemic vaccine, to a maximum quantity necessary to supply 50 per cent of the German population.”

Meaning: At most, half of Germany will be provided for.

PRICE

“The buying price... is €7 plus tax per dose, €1 of which is covers the antigen components and €6... the booster components.”

Meaning: The serum itself only costs €1 per dose; it’s the booster that is expensive.

DELIVERY TIMEFRAME

It is agreed upon that “an obligation does not exist on the part of GSK to supply the theoretically-calculated weekly supply of the pandemic vaccine within a certain timeframe".

Meaning: GSK doesn’t have to uphold any delivery dates.

SIDE EFFECTS
“The states hold GSK... free of any claim for damages by third parties, losses or financial costs, or any legal actions incurred.”

Meaning: Should any unexpected major side effects arise, the manufacture has only very limited responsibility. In lawsuits the province would take main legal responsibility.

SECRECY

“The parties commit themselves to treat all information which is exchanged in the frame of this contract as confidential.”

TIME SPAN

The contract... ends with its carrying out in the first case of a pandemic or by Dec 31, 2012 if no acute case has been present.”